Thursday, January 19, 2012

Learning to coupon part 2

Part 2: Recognizing a Deal

With a Grocery List in hand and coupons for the items on your grocery list. It's time to go shopping!

First lets look at your Grocery List?Is there anything you buy that is generic? I know lots of time generic is cheaper than brand names but this will teach you how to recognize when you are getting a real deal. It will be cheaper to buy the brand name.

For Example:

Lets say your item is cereal.
You like generic honey-nut cheerios which cost ($2.09)
The brand name cheerios cost ($2.89)

You pick up a coupon for $0.75/1 ($0.75 off of 1). Your price would be $2.14, still not cheaper than the generic. So you would buy the generic unless your store doubles the coupon.

Double coupon: If your store doubles the coupon for $0.75/1. This makes your coupon worth: $1.50/1. Your price would now be $1.39 per box. This makes it much cheaper to buy the Brand name.

Stocking up: You know you will have to buy it again next week so you consider how much you can store. Lets say you can store four boxes and you brought a total of 4 coupons with you. So you buy the 4 boxes and don't have to buy cereal the next 4 weeks. You just saved yourself: $3.00

Note: If you didn't bring enough coupons don't purchase the extra. Some grocery stores will only double the first coupon if you have more of the same coupon. A way to get around this is making multiple orders/trips.

If your living on a budget, that's great. If not you should be! (Making a Budget).

Because of your Budget you may only be able to afford to spend so much per week. This is why we write our grocery list to begin. By having a list we are less likely to add unnecessary items to our cart just because we can. It also allows us time to gather coupons.

For now just set aside the money you save each trip from your coupons for your next trip. Then you can begin to stock up on items and have the money and the coupons to pay for them.